There’s a difference between having a successful business, and living a life you love.
You might think one will lead to the other – if you run a successful business that will mean that you’re living a life you love. And if that’s the case for you? Terrific. In my experience, people often love their business but are not living a life they love. Not really. It might be pretty good but it’s still mostly all work and very little play.
One of the themes that can impact this for clients is that they feel they need to overdeliver.
What I mean by that is that they will continually tweak, hone, add, revisit what they’re offering even though they logically know that what they already have or know is enough. In effect, this translates to not feeling enough within themselves. That feeling is not one most people want to dive into headfirst, so instead they focus on what they can offer to offset that feeling.
You Might Be Overdelivering If You:
- Work more hours than what you’re paid for
- Don’t charge for the full amont of hours involved
- Add in more perceived ‘value’ to feel more worthy of what you charge / your price point
- You don’t value your own time and energy, so you fit in with the schedule / calendar / needs / priorities of your clients
- Don’t recognise the value of your own experience / skills / capabilities gained over the course of your whole working life and within business. Instead, you focus on the whole ‘time for money’ exchange / hourly rate, not what the value of your offering is.
- Are highly accessible to your clients, without being remunerated appropriately. In other words, you will ditch your planned home life / family / kids / self care / sleep because ‘I just need to take this call…’ or ‘I’m going to be home late’ or ‘I need to get an early start on this’. If your clients are paying you well to have that as part of your package, that’s awesome. And if not, you’re overdelivering.
This will lead to you being time poor; probably exhausted; resentful; referring to yourself as ‘busy’ all the time. The people in your life who care the most about you will have made murmurings (or told you straight up) that you’re working too much; that you’re distracted; that you weren’t supposed to be working tonight / on the weekend; to get off the phone and so on.
You will feel wanted and needed and in demand and your books might be pretty full! But there’s still no time to take your foot off the gas, because how the hell would you get everything done then?!
It’s impossible to live a life you love while you’re overdelivering, and in essence, undervaluing your own worth. You will get stuck into working all hours and never having time for you, or to do the things you love with the people you love.
In other words, you’re not actually living your ideal life.
‘Does anyone?’, you might ask.
Well yes they do, as a matter of fact. But I would say most people don’t, in my experience.
Now I have no business telling you what your ideal life should be. How many hours of work; how many hours of play; the balance between doing work you love with people you love; and filling your own cup.
Only you will know what that ideal mix is. But if there is any kind of sense of work feeling HARD or uninspired or heavy. If you feel like you’ve fallen out of love with your work. If there is a lot of thinking around what you ‘should’ do or names you call yourself if you’re not working hard (lazy; selfish; mean if you say ‘no’ to something), then I would take a punt on your biz not currently being aligned to your ideal life.
I have spent years helping people to clearly identify what their vision is for their business and / or life, via my Create Your Vision workshops. I know for a fact that many people don’t have that deeply aligned sense of where they’re heading, or what they want to be experiencing consistently in their week / life.
Hell, I didn’t either! Until I did my own vision board process back in 2015. And let me tell you, that didn’t magically transform my world either. I had a tonne of coaching. Still do!
The thing is, you can do a vision board once (or even once a year), but still get stuck in a work mode that isn’t working out well for you.
This is because your identity, your beliefs, your energy, and who you’re being will all be aligned to the person that needs to work hard to get what they want.
Being surrounded by people who are all hustling and working endlessly, can influence your sense of if you’re doing it right, or if you’re being lazy for wanting to work less. It can challenge your beliefs that earning money requires a certain number of hours of work per week or a particular amount of effort.
Because can you believe that it’s easy to make money, even when you’re not working? Can you believe that people will pay you well if you don’t jam pack your offerings with extra perceived value? If you’re not endlessly available, will people still want you?
I know for a fact working less can lead to earning more, because it’s happened to me. I also watch my clients go from wondering how they’ll fit in time for coaching once a fortnight, because they’re so ‘busy’, to freeing up time for their own self care practices and wellbeing.
With my help they identify their ideal week. One that they would truly love. It sounds so damn obvious. And I guess it is. But we all know that many things that seem simple (move your body more; eat clean foods; meditate) don’t always happen!
They then start to work less; nurture themselves more; let go of what is draining them (clients; a particular work schedule; services they’re offering etc) and then they put their prices up; scale their business; see new, incredible opportunities start to flow in and their energy elevates.
They are working less but loving the work they are doing and the people they’re doing it with. They’re making more money; can sustain what they’re doing, instead of burning out or getting sick on the regular; and have never taken better care of themselves. They have dream opportunities coming in. Things that have never come their way before. It can be tempting to think it’s a coincidence. I know it’s not that. It’s the shift that comes from changing who they’re being, and what they’re now attracting.
THIS, my friend, is what’s possible.
THIS is living a life you love.
THIS is what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.
Continuing to work with people who don’t light you up is a disservice to you both.
Continuing to offer a service you don’t love will be bringing your energy down.
Constantly overdelivering is undermining your worth.
Here’s 4 steps you can take right now to live a life you love:
- Work out your ideal work week – hours; days; what you’re doing.
- Identify the balance between work and play
- Determine who you really want to work with and then act accordingly from there
- Play around with how you could stop overdelivering and honouring your value instead.
Kylie x
If you’re anything like me, you may find it hard to do this without some guidance and help. If that’s the case, head here to book in a free 30mins Clarity Call.
Feel free to check out my last blog post about ‘Why Trusting Your Intuition Can Be A Pain In the Butt’.
Tags: business success Human Behaviour self worth selfcare transformational coaching
